


House of Cards

by Spades



Series: Tumblr Drabble Challenge [9]
Category: Incredible Hulk (2008), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Musing, sleeping!Bruce, tony sucks at feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-21
Updated: 2012-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-14 17:25:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/517708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spades/pseuds/Spades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>tell me that you'll open your eyes</p>
            </blockquote>





	House of Cards

Tony watches him sleep, wavy brown sprawled across the pillow in a irrational number sequence that he wishes he could figure the meaning out in. The edges of fear lingered around him, sharp, biting, cutting into him, leaving him to hurt and wonder what the world would be without him – he can’t think like that then, not when there’s Bruce right there, sleeping and his face – for once – was relaxed, not tormented by the anger that he fought so hard to hide during the day. Tony could normally see it etched, he could see the tidal wave coming just by looking at how Bruce slept – he knew so well, this, this was the calm before the storm, where Bruce’s dreams were just a simper of what they could be.

He could see the years that fell off of him when he was so calm like this, the way his eyes fluttered in their rem cycles and how his body was relaxed, not tense, not like he was already fighting the urge to dart away from the bed the moment something woke him. The way Bruce’s large hand against his chest rested, sprawled, possessively over his own heart and he’s breathing, god, Tony can see each rise and fall, whispering breaths likes prayers and Tony can only find himself inhaling and exhaling with him. He starts feeling the strain of the lacking intakes of air that were making his muscles and chest burn, his own eyelashes fluttering and he feels like he’s going to choke – he forces himself to return to normal. Bruce’s fingers twitch, tapping more numbers against the tanned chest and Tony doesn’t know what he’s found himself in.

Turning to rest on his back, his eyes on the ceiling and counts the dots from things he would know if it wasn’t almost dawn, if he hadn’t been up for hours before. He wants so much from the man next to him, he wants to ask him to stay – he wants to ask him to be by his side, he wants to ask him if he’d count the stars or stay until he takes his last breath. He’s so greedy, but he’s not really willing to speak those words to him. He’s not sure he’d ever be ready to tell him everything that lingered so clearly in his eyes. He brushes his fingers against the corners of his own eyes, collecting the wetness that simply lingered there.

He doesn’t know what he’s even doing now. Why he hasn’t tried to yank away from this stupid situation, where he knows it’s all going to come folding down like a house of cards. Tony wonders if he’s almost going to run himself, if Bruce would know where to find him if he was the one to try and disappear.

There’s no way for him to move, he’s frozen there, staring at ceiling counting the flecks of darkness on the white and the thinks about the fractals that would make the patterns of the molecules – the pretty crystals that made up the panels of his ceiling and he draws the comparisons between him and the ceiling, how well they sit in their intended spot and how Tony doesn’t – he wishes he could be the ceiling for even the briefest moments. He wishes he could stay in one spot until the day roamed over and he would be torn down like any normal building. He doesn’t know if the man besides him is already doing that – but it feels like he is.

He feels like Bruce is stealing pieces of him, like chipping the paint off of a wall, sanding him down to plaster, fixing the holes and filling them, getting him ready to be repainted. Tony isn’t sure, but he thinks Bruce is taking over the parts of his proverbial building that Pepper can’t get too and fixing those while she fixes her parts and they’ll chose a new color.

Tony laughs, low, soft, careful, his hand rubbing over his face – he feels ridiculous, laying there, the lingering bite of fear and the knowledge that he’d run if he could – but he can’t so he lays there. He bets there are a million other people who would want Bruce in their bed, he bets there’s one woman who would take him back if Tony let her. He can’t let her though, he’s so unable to even think of that possibility. She hadn’t come for him, he knows she’s never called and Tony wonders if she would come if he asked her too – just to make sure she could touch his cheeks and kiss against the weary eye lids and Tony could gauge whether or not Bruce wanted to go back to her.

It’s not fair to put himself through this, he could be doing so much more than laying there under heavy blankets and stuck in a hot room with a man he wasn’t sure what to say too. There’s so much he could say, he knows, he could tell him that there’s no number in the world that would ever compare to how scared Tony is of not knowing what was okay and what wasn’t. That he’s sorry that he can’t do everything he wishes he could for Bruce, that he couldn’t be the rock that grounds him and that Tony would probably run the moment Bruce ever started crying; he would tell him that there’s no measure grand enough to tell him how much he wishes he could take the pieces that hurt him and take them away and make them his.

Love, he wants to tell him he loved him. He wants to tell him it – but the way his throat tightens and mouth dries stops him. He feels paralyzed, stuck in a moment in time that doesn’t exist to him. Suspended in animation by his own design, watching the moment from out of his body and fuck all that metaphysical shit that makes no sense to him but probably would to Bruce and his stupid sexy brain. He hates him and he wants him and he wants to to hate him but fucking can’t. Tony’s choking on his own laughing, fuck he’s so fucked. So fucked and Tony doesn’t know if he can wait until he screws everything up by being that stupid Byronic hero.

Tony would run if he could, if he didn’t fucking want to stay so much. He’d save everyone some fucking heart ache if he just stopped wanting everything he could get from Bruce and Pepper, he would run and hide and stay the fuck out of everyone’s faces and that would probably kill him, now that he thought about it. Kill him and he would probably die there and not even care, because he deserved it.

Another snort left him, leaving him chuckling with every ounce of mirth that he could muster, his voice catching in his throat, the back of his hand wiping his eyes and he swears that he was just being ridiculously dramatic, that there was really no need to think that, that he’d die without them. Hell, he must’ve been ridiculous to even go so far as to think of himself like those Byronic Heroes from classic literature that he read about when Bruce was off doing something and he was alone and bored. It was ridiculous. So fucking ridiculous.

He blindly reaches out for Bruce, finding his wrist suddenly in a hold right before it touched the nose. He allows himself to be man handled closer, Bruce’s nose nudging against his temple and one arm wrapped tight around his back.

“Love you,” he hears and Tony can’t even fault him for it, Tony’s been thinking about saying it since he got Bruce to put out and agree to stay around. He’s frozen, Bruce’s breath stilling again and fuck the bastard. Tony curled closer, resting his forehead into the curve of the other’s throat.

Red, pinks, oranges and yellows paints against the darkly colored sheets and touch the corner of his eyes lids and he can’t stop it, it bubbles from his chest and he gives the barest whisper of, “I love you too.” He doesn’t miss the flutter of lashes or the slight smile on Bruce’s lips and Tony knows that Bruce won’t say anything and that’s good. That’s perfect.

They were still a house of cards, but Tony was a man who could move forwards through anything. If he couldn’t stop the wind from blowing, he’d just glue the cards to each other.


End file.
